Crumbling infra, teacher crunch expose Haryana’s education crisis

Studies during this academic session in the schools of Haryana are half way through. The half-yearly examinations have already started for students from Classes 3 to 12. Though the academic calendar remains almost the same for all schools, including private and government-owned ones, it’s the students in government schools which are obviously the disadvantageous lot.

In fact, the academic session was hampered by the monsoon in a big way in a number of schools in many districts of the state.

For example, about more than 100 government schools in Hisar remained waterlogged for couple of weeks during the monsoon. Similar was the condition of several schools in Jind, Bhiwani and many other districts.

While in some villages, the students were shifted to alternative locations, many of these schools remained shut in the absence of availability of alternative spaces in the respective villages.

The excessive rain also brought to the fore the issue of safety of school buildings as many of these schools were built several decades back. Hisar’s District Education Officer Ved Singh Dahiya informed that they have been collecting the data of unsafe/condemned school buildings. So far, they had got reports from about 100 schools in which the buildings are partially unsafe. Besides, there are 17 school buildings which are completely unsafe.

After the recent monsoon, the state authorities directed government schools to compile reports on damaged buildings as these pose a risk to the lives of students and staff.

The infrastructural problems apart, the acute shortage of teachers is a major issue with the Education Department. This puts extra burden on the existing staff, creating a cascading effect on the overall quality of education.

According to the Education Department’s latest report, out of 1,22,359 sanctioned posts, 29,866 posts are lying vacant in the state’s school educational setup.

Of the total vacancies, 14,187 are vacant in the Trained Graduate Teacher (TGT) cadre, 9,818 in the Post Graduate Teacher (PGT) cadre, and 5,461 in the Primary (PRT/JBT) cadre.

In the PGT cadre, the highest number of vacancies—1,859—are in computer science and key subjects such as English and science together account for nearly 1,500 vacant posts.

Education experts stressed that the authorities must urgently address these gaps as the condition of government schools reflects the broader state of Haryana’s education system — the foundation of any society’s progress.

Haryana Primary Teachers Association president Hariom Rathi maintained that they had taken up the issues with the government in the past. “We will soon be meeting the Education Minister to urge him to recruit teachers. There are a number of schools where there are no teachers. This is injustice with the students and puts government school students at disadvantageous position vis-a-vis the privately-owned schools,” he said.

Rathi said it was good that the government has woken up to the reconstruction and repair of very old school buildings. He said that they have also been demanding that the extra workload from the teachers should be taken off.

Notably, Haryana, which is one of the most prosperous states in terms of per capita income of Rs 1,94,285, is at 20th position in literacy rate. “This is ironical and has exposed the poor state of affairs in the education sector,” said Devender Singh, a retired Education Officer. It is unfortunate that the education sector has remained a neglected area in Haryana despite being a prosperous state.